[OT] Warcraft III

[Psionicist]

I know this is OT, but I just have to recommend this game. Warcraft III must be one of the greatest game I've played in a very, very long time. I do have Neverwinter Nigths installed, but I don't bother, Warcraft III is a much funnier game. I think I've played it for 3-4 hours per day over the past month! The single player campaign is pretty much da*n great for a "strategy" game, it's not on par with Baldurs Gate or such RPGs, but I must say I am as engaged in this storyline as in every Black Isle/Bioware game I have played...

I really like the hero-system that gives some small RPG-elements to the game. Every time I play this, I get some new kick-ass RP-idea. I just love the personalities from the single player campaign, suddenly i feel like to play a minotaour druid/fighter, and that's said by me, who have never played a druid, or enjoyed RP-ing a fighter - ever.

Unfortunately, due to poor connection (dial-up modem), I cannot game on battle.net. I would love to, though

Anyhow, the game is highly addictive, and I truly recommend it for anyone who might enjoy a good computer game. FYI, I am currently at chapter nine, orc campaign, medium difficulty setting.

 

[Zappo]

I've completed Warcraft III's single-player campaign. It's great fun, but I can hardly see myself doing it again. It is a very good game, but I can't really call it 'addictive'.

The RP element is basically gone after you've finished the campaign, the game reverting to the usual RTS, and don't expect finding any over the battle.net.

 

[The Forsaken One]

I was a professional Starcraft Brood War player for nearly 3 years and I'm rather disappointed with the game. It's niec, the graphics, the storyline is great and the heros and stuff but in multiplayer options and in strategy options the game is way too shallow compared to SCBW.

A very good game though and I can recommend it to everyone but if you were all into starcraft, don't expect this to be at elast half as addicting =]

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

I've been thinking about getting it, but waiting until the price drops from $60

 

[Moleculo]

Hey forsaken, who were you in BW? just wondering. I like war3 because i am slightly better at it than war3. I would reccomend buying it, but i can see it going out of style if they patch it again so terribly.

jake

 

[Wayside]

The single player campaign can be fun as a psuedo-RPG, but it doesn't necessarily end there Zappo. There are all kinds of scripted RPG mods you can find online and a lot of people play them on b.net--everything from basic RPG to The Legend of Zelda games--though I don't really think this is War3's best feature.

Personally I find the strategy of War3 to have much more depth than Starcraft, even Brood War, and assuming Blizzard releases an expansion for War3, I expect it to get a lot better (there were a few dozen units developed that didn't make it into the final game as it is, which they should have time to balance for an expansion, hopefully).

I'll admit, though, that 1.03 is a mess. And War3 isn't like Starcraft, so being a 'pro' at one doesn't translate into not sucking at the other, and I can see how this might put off transitioning players, but you can't really criticize the depth of play until you can take Faluzure or CrazyAssassin or Tillerman or any of the other top players. Even just watching them play.. you won't get there without investing some time in the game. And then, the leveling aspect of b.net accounts means that, for your first few hundred games, you're likely to be pitted against other relatively inexperienced players (unless you never lose, in which case you'll level faster). So if you think the game is comparatively basic, you don't really have any excuse for losing at this point.

Unfortunately since you get more experience for a win than you lose for a loss, even a lot of mid-high level players have more losses than wins, which is disappointing--but, at the same time, they're going up against much tougher competition than the low level players, so I can understand their large number of losses. Plus, it's a lot less intimidating playing against some level 14 guy when he's got a few hundred losses.

Oh, and also, the game has been availible under 60$ for a long time. I bought it a month ago from newegg.com for 30$ (I'm sure they've sold out of them by now but you can always check), but I've seen it 2 or 3 places for 35$ since then as well. Look around online.. a good rule of thumb for anything electronics related is to *not* buy it at some BestBuy chain store or whatever. Talk about inflating prices..

 

[Moleculo]

I don't think war3 has as much strategic depth as sc/bw does. The economy is much much simpler in war3, and the game isn't completely balanced. It is still really fun, but i don't beleive that any of those players think its more complex than war3. Also, i think that most mid to highlevel players have more wins than losses. I think the bottom line is that its not as deep as BW/Sc but its still really fun and many problems will be ironed out in the patch. just don't play orc competitively heh.

jake

 

[Kesh]

I've gotten stuck in the Undead campaign. I believe it's the last level, since it's one of those "survive for 30 minutes" things.

I hate those.

The last three times I played, I made it to the final 15 seconds before being overrun. Now that they've done the 1.03 tweaking, I'll have to see if it's better, or worse.

And I haven't even considered playing online yet. I've had my butt handed to me enough times in StarCraft to avoid it.

 

[Dark Jezter]

The v1.03 patch has made life a lot tougher for orc players now, because the orcs have embarrasingly bad anti-air defenses. Nowadays, any other race can mass air units, and the orc player will be screwed unless they've had a lot of time to prepare.

On a related note, has anybody heard any more about the Warcraft D20 RPG that's supposed to be out early next year?

 

[Wayside]

Well, the bottom line is that none of these so-called strategy games involve much strategy at all. There is a limit not only to how good you can be, but to the options availible to you for achieving victory. 1 player can never beat out 7 others all working against him, which is pretty ridiculous for a strategy game.

People think I'm insane when I say this but I think some of the most strategic games out there are very simple, like Smash Bros. In the first place they're unwilling to label it a stretgy game, which I can certainly understand, but the fact that I can take 3 other people working against me and easily destroy them has nothing to do with mastering the game; it's about strategy. The degree to which you can just utterly manipulate your opponent(s) is greater here than in rts games as far as I have ever seen. I suppose it's sort of like Kendo or chess in certain ways, though I wouldn't take either analogy terribly far. These things just don't manifest in games like Starcraft or Warcraft, whether there is the potential for them to or not. In my observation the crafts play out much more like a game of Magic than anything resembling strategy (again it's a question of what actually manifests in the game, not of what could potentially), i.e. metagame and what not, a few established strategies, some aces, not often anything terribly exciting--though I think that Magic is a lot more complex than the crafts, or at least it used to be, I havn't checked up on it in about 3 years.

I know there are people who make use of some more complex ideas in these games and give them funny names like tactical aggression or tactical adaptation, but it pretty much comes down to micromanagement, scouting and adapting, tactical or no.

That said I still feel Warcraft 3 is a more complex game than BroodWar, but we can play I'm right/you're right all day and get nowhere so..

Interesting that people feel orcs are weakened now. I didn't start playing them until 1.03 but I'm 7 and 0 so far, but then that's 2v2. The weak race, at least in 2v2, is Night Elf. If they go to Hunts they lose, if they go archers they lose. Come to think of it they're incredibly vulnerable to offensive towering in 1v1 as well so. But I'm rambling..